


Nanny Ashteroth's Home for Wayward Children

by freudensteins_monster



Series: Ineffable Fic Ideas [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crowley Loves Kids (Good Omens), Fic Idea - Expanded Summary, Finished it at midnight on the dot, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-29 20:57:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20442425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freudensteins_monster/pseuds/freudensteins_monster
Summary: Good Omens x Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.Crowley has always had a soft spot for children and has been saving them from the machinations of both sides since the Great Flood. Aziraphale has never reported him for it, and never technically lied, because he's always conveniently looking in the opposite direction whenever Crowley decides "to hell with orders" and starts rounding up the children most at risk from the next round of ineffable bullshit.





	Nanny Ashteroth's Home for Wayward Children

Crowley's always had a soft spot for children and has been saving them from the machinations of both sides since the Great Flood. Aziraphale has never reported him for it, and never technically lied, because he's always conveniently looking in the opposite direction whenever Crowley decides "to hell with orders" and starts rounding up the children most at risk from the next round of ineffable bullshit.

Occasionally he discovers strange, slightly more-than-human children and does his damndest to keep them hidden from the agents of Heaven and Hell, who would want to smite them on the spot or weaponize them for their own ends depending on the child. He's not always successful. Aziraphale is always there comfort him when he loses one but it's not until the Great War that Aziraphale takes on a more active role in Crowley's acts of rebellion and child-rearing.

While both sides are distracted, busy preening over their involvement in horror of modern warfare, Aziraphale and Crowley miracle up a safe haven; a moment frozen outside of time. Crowley reaches out to all his special children and asks them to join him in London. He's incredibly anxious about them all being together in one place, exposed for the first time in centuries, but when they converge on an unassuming street corner in Soho he can't help but smile.

He ushers his children (the sole surviving Nephilim, a gorgon with protective glasses fashioned after Crowley's own, and a young boy who may have been the inspiration for Wilde's Dorian Gray or perhaps Well's Invisible Man for starters, and maybe later on a girl who can see the future and a boy who makes anything electronic he touches explode) into a dusty old bookshop and introduces them to kindly Mr Fell. Together they escort the children to a door hidden behind a bookshelf in one of the back rooms. They cross the threshold and find themselves stepping out into the parlour of Nanny Ashteroth's Home for Wayward Children, a sprawling Victorian manor sits on the outskirts of the idyllic village of Tadfield, and where it is forever the 6th of June, 1906.

Back on the other side of the door the world continues to move forward. Crowley discovers a few more special children in need of his particular brand of protection and Aziraphale is always there to welcome them with a smile and a cup of cocoa. Some of his children decide to return to the world outside, and Crowley doesn't have it in him to deny them their freedom. Once in a while one of them will show up on the bookshop steps unannounced with a friend in tow, someone in need of a guardian demon, and Crowley fears he might discorporate from sheer pride.

Inevitably the Antichrist is delivered into Crowley's possession and the countdown to Armageddon begins. One glance at the basket's contents and Crowley knows what he needs to do. An hour later, after pulling a few jedi mind tricks over some chatty nuns, he introduces the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness - Adam for short - to a slightly less certain Aziraphale. But it doesn't take much - less than half a bottle of wine - to get the angel on board with his plan.

11 years later the Antichrist is a no show.

"It's not my fault," the demon Crowley protests when he's summoned Below for sudden performance review. "I delivered him to the nuns like I was told to. If they mucked it up that's hardly my fault. We could ask them what happened that night, and who else the child could've ended up with, but some toad-wearing-an-idiot disbanded them and then set fire to the whole bleeding hospital!"

Suspicion diverted and consequences avoided for now, Crowley returns to his perfect moment outside of time where a three year old Adam* plays with his newly acquired dog, Dog.

*Time doesn't pass in Tadfield, so not even Nanny's more mortal charges age, but looking after a squalling infant grows old (metaphorically speaking) so Adam spends every weekend with Aziraphale in the flat above the bookshop. They'll cut it back to a weekend every other month once he's finally potty trained, and then just a sleepover here and there until such time as he's mentally old enough to understand what's going on and voice his own opinions on the matter.

11 will come sooner or (much, much) later, but Crowley's not worried. Adam's got two parental figures who love him, who defied Heaven and Hell for him, who stopped time for him, and he has a house full of weird and wonderful siblings that make every day, even a never-ending one, an adventure. Even Aziraphale stopped fretting after the first century.

**Author's Note:**

> Also on tumblr:
> 
> https://freudensteins-monster.tumblr.com/post/187358023346/fic-ideas-ill-never-finish-666a-nanny


End file.
